


Words are Spaces Between Us

by malachai_hades_parker



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, SUPER SMUTTY, a full rewrite of how i think season 6 should have gone, also gonna be real nasty and weird, also lots of the gemini coven exploration and kai flashbacks, and bonnie dealing with her feeling for the MFG, angsty af, lots of kinky dark!BK coming up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:23:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malachai_hades_parker/pseuds/malachai_hades_parker
Summary: (Bonkai/Dark!Bonkai/Redemptive!Bonkai/S6 Rewrite) "Hey, so, where's Damon? Oh, wait, wait, don't tell me— he's looking for a band-aid to slap over that shish-kabobed hand. Does super healing even work when the injury is from a stake? See, I've always heard of vampires, but this is my first time actually seeing one—" "You never stop talking, do you?"





	Words are Spaces Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> So, I actually managed to get over 4k with this first chapter, and that's pretty cool. I'm usually pretty bad about just posting shit willy-nilly, without actually caring how short it is. Anyhow.. As some of you guys know, I was unhappy with how Maybe Next Week started, and I had an idea to try doing a stylistic thing for the first chapter. I wrote some fragmented scenes that kind of explain Bonnie's thoughts/inner monologue for the canon BK scenes, and I made some canon alterations so I could write a few Bonkaimon scenes just for funsies. Basically, after this chapter, I'm going to pick up at Kai and Bonnie's thanksgiving dinner and explore how this story will diverge from the canon. My plans are to explore their dynamic as dark and sexual. And then, eventually, when they're out of the PW, rewrite all of that junk afterwards. I want to focus on Kai and Bonnie separately figuring their shit out, and also explore the Bennett/Parker coven connection. Then... eventually, this might have a happy ending, but I intend it to go for pretty long. Thanks for reading, friends.

_"The useless one is here- thank god. I've watched you try to do magic for months, now. What are you gonna do, fail at me?"_

It's been almost fifteen minutes since they'd dragged him out of the grocery store, but Kai's mocking words are still echoing in her head and chasing at her thoughts. She'd won, she thinks to herself reassuringly. She'd felt the familiar tidal wave of magic crash into her and watched his smug face drop to the defensive as flames tore across the floor.

It had felt good in a way Bonnie Bennett had really only experienced a handful of times. It was a kind of power, dominance and self-assuredness that she's starting to realize she relishes a little more than she should.

She watches him in the back seat of Damon's Camaro, his hands tied behind his back. He looks scrawny and unassuming, and the fact he'd taken down a vampire single-handedly still strikes her as odd. Outwitting Damon didn't seem too difficult of a task because of the vampire's incessant narcissism, but the way a glimmer of mischief passively glints in Kai's steely eyes, she knows better than to write him off.

His grunge flavor of 90's clothing paired with his pale skin and smooth, pretty face gives Bonnie a strange sense of what kind of guy he might be. He seems like, she realizes with disdain, the kind of creep that might sign up for Anatomy class in high school just to dissect and pull apart dead animals for kicks.

It doesn't take him long after waking to start speaking.

"Hey, so, where's Damon? Oh, wait, wait, don't tell me— he's looking for a band-aid to slap over that shish-kabobed hand. Does super healing even work when the injury is from a stake? See, I've always  _hear_ _d_ of vampires, but this is my first time actually seeing one—"

"You never stop talking, do you?" Bonnie interrupts, gritting her teeth. "Maybe he's finishing grocery shopping. Y'know, the thing he came here to do before you stabbed him."

Kai's lips twitch up at the corners and he leans back in the seat, looking smug. "Don't lie, Bonnie. He was here because the two of you were on the outs. Why else would he come to Bell's Store? To get some Cheez-Its? No, your buddy Damon is an alcoholic vampire who needs bourbon every two seconds to prevent him from transforming into a giant, tantrum-throwing toddler." He pauses. "A toddler that.. drinks blood. And kills people. Am I the only one that thinks he's weird?"

Bonnie gives him a hard look. "Considering you just tried to stab someone to death with a lawn ornament, I'm going to revoke your card for calling anyone weird."

"Lawn ornaments, though—  _whew_. Have you ever tried stabbing someone to death with a pink flamingo? Like one of those cheap ones from Michael's? It's a lot cleaner than you'd think—"

"You know what's going to give you a one-way ticket to being tied up even longer? Making jokes about killing people," Bonnie says coolly, turning away from him to sit forward in her seat. "Maybe if you shut your mouth, this would be a lot easier for you."

"You say that like you're sure I  _haven't_ actually killed anyone," Kai points out, and she can still see his smirk in the side mirror. "Isn't that kind of a gamble? Not that I'm complaining, of course."

Bonnie starts to open her mouth and then closes it. "I guess," she says finally. "I think you're putting up some kind of front. I don't think you are what you say you are  _or_ what you seem like, but that could be good or bad. So if I were you, I'd  _stop talking_."

"I'm on your side, Bonnie," is all he says, and then the driver's side door opens and Damon is sliding into the car.

"Oh, thank god," the witch greets. "He woke up ten minutes ago and hasn't shut up since. We need to get him out of here."

"I've got what we need," Damon says, turning the ignition. "Let's just keep this idiot tied up, get him where we need him and torture him until we know whatever the hell he knows. Simple."

"Wow, what a way to spend an evening," Kai is saying from the back seat with a sigh. "Better than mini golf. You guys should open a themed resort."

Damon immediately begins to squabble with him, and Bonnie tunes out, rolling her eyes as she rests her head against the window glass. The two of them are going to drive her to suicide before she can even escape the place.

-o-o-o-o-

" _Family called me an abomination. That hurt my feelings."_

Searing pain. It was all Bonnie had felt when Kai's fingers latched around her wrist and he'd put his siphoning ability on display for the first time.

Of course, there had been a catch— there always was. Kai had murdered his own coven, and escaping would mean setting him free. While they had learned that something called an Ascendant could be used to escape the Prison World, they hadn't gleaned much other knowledge aside from Kai threatening to siphon and kill her if she didn't perform the spell herself.

It seemed desperate. She couldn't pinpoint it, but after his attack, she had gained the faintest of feelings that maybe Kai was exaggerating the situation as some kind of fear tactic. Bonnie had been used for being a Bennett witch one too many times to fully buy that  _she_ wasn't needed specifically for the spell to work. Considering Kai's disposition, it seemed unlikely that he might waste any time with 'befriending' she and Damon if he could just kill them and go.

Bonnie is pondering all of these things while sifting through her camcorder, sitting back in one of the sofas in the den. Damon is standing not far off, taking shots at a dartboard they'd dragged in not too long ago during one of their especially mind-numbing days. It's set up in the corner, and multiple bourbon bottles and cups litter the side table near it. It's become somewhat of a Damon sulking spot, she realizes.

"Bonnie, I know this whole situation isn't ideal. Being held at magical gunpoint by a scrawny manchild-psychopath was at the very end of my long list of things to do today, too, believe it or not. But, if we get  _home_ — if we can get back to Elena and Stefan—"

"You accepted the deal because it's convenient for you," Bonnie replies, only a little scathingly. "You were trying to get me to do the spell anyways, so Kai rolling along with a death threat wasn't exactly a huge inconvenience for you."

Damon squints at her, pausing with a dart still in his hand. "What should I have done instead? Offered you up on a big ole pancake serving platter? That idiot isn't going to lay another finger on you."

"That's actually yet to be determined," Kai points out gleefully, entering the room holding the plate Bonnie had been using earlier that he'd hijacked, except with even more pancakes piled atop it. It irks her- the way he just walks around acting like he owns the place. Part of her knows that he does, in a way.

This Prison World is his, after all.

Kai plops down on the couch, far too close to where Bonnie is sitting. She can feel his body heat, and their legs are almost touching by an inch and a half of space. She feels her hair stand on end, the memory of the siphoning still fresh in the forefront of her mind. Kai places the plate of pancakes on the coffee table, rubbing his hands together.

"See, here's the thing: if you two act like good little Prison World accomplices and bust us all out of here, there'll be no hard feelings. Just like that. If ole Bonster here gets any ideas—" he lifts an arm around her like he's going to make a move, but instead just places a hand on her shoulder briefly, claps it and then withdraws. "-there'll be hard feelings." He glances at her when he says the word 'hard', lowering his eyelids. "Like, really hard."

Bonnie swallows, a sharp mixture of fear and heat rippling through her. His face is too close- she can feel his gaze cutting into her; violating her. His words are sexually charged, and she finds herself biting down on her lip. She realizes with distant certainty that her body is just reacting to him and instead of allowing her to think first. _He threatened you. He's a psychopath- a nutjob. He killed his whole family._

Her mind wanders, though- wanders to how long he must have been watching them. What all he'd seen of her. How well he knew her.

"You're crazy," she says softly, and she means it. "Don't touch me again." She wants to snap- tell him he's never escaping this damned personal Hell. He won't.  _She'd rather die than let him._

Kai's looking at her, his pupils blown so wide that his gray-blue eyes look dark. His mouth is set in a serious frown, and the planes of his face are illuminated in the firelight. His gaze meets hers in a challenge, and she raises her chin to meet it.

The air feels thicker, somehow, and it's then she knows-  _this_ is why she's here.  _Kai Parker is why she's here_. She's not letting him escape.

Bonnie entirely forgets Damon's presence until he clears his throat, bringing her back to reality.

"Hey, Hannibal Lecter," the dark-haired Salvatore says, throwing his dart with a little more force than would be typically necessary. " _Back off_ Clarice or the deal's canceled and I rip your head off. We clear?"

Kai snaps out of the trance almost instantaneously, but Bonnie has no such luck. " _The Silence of the Lambs_ ," the Siphon says in a sing-song voice, a small smirk on his lips. "Good reference, Damon. You want a cookie? Maybe one of those nifty gold stars they hand out to kindergarteners? I mean, wow, a  _90's_  reference and we're in the 90's. I get it."

"Oh my god," Damon muses, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "He  _never stops talking_. Bon Bon, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a drill to put through my skull. It might be the only thing that'll drown out the sound of this idiot." He's walking away as he says it, having snatched up a glass of bourbon from the table.

"Has anyone ever told you that Bonnie is better company?" Kai calls after him.

A hysterical kind of amusement twitches in Bonnie as she realizes the first person to truly enjoy her company in months is a deranged sociopath.

"Hey, Bonnie, do you want to play Monopoly? I think you should know I don't steal from the bank like Damon does."

The Bennett witch shoots him a look, squinting blatantly. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Kai licks his lips, leaning forward on the couch. "I just told you- I'm bored."

_xxxx_

"Listen, Bonnie, the guy is off his rocker," Damon is saying, downing the last sip of bourbon from his cup. The two are standing at the threshold of Damon's bedroom, which Bonnie had snuck off to under the ruse of using the restroom. "But  _I_  say, we play his stupid little game."

Bonnie can't hide her perplexed look. "You're suggesting we play a board game with him? Are you serious?"

"We sit down, play the little twerp's game, sing kumbaya and figure out what he knows about the spell. If it's something, great. If it's nothing, we're still on a one-way ticket train back to Mystic Falls tomorrow." He slams the empty cup down on his end table, perking his brows at her expectantly.

Bonnie swallows. "Fine. Let's just do it. Let's get this over with."

_xxxx_

They decide on playing  _The Game of Life_. It's the first board game Damon finds in one of Uncle Zach's closets, and after blowing a heavy layer of dust off of it, the three of them settle into the den to unpack it.

Bonnie is sitting next to Kai, cross-legged on the floor. The Siphon has his legs thrown out lazily in front of him, almost touching hers. Each time she finds herself glancing over at him, he throws her looks that are almost friendly in nature. It creeps her out.

When they finally bring out the pawns, Kai picks the plastic orange car, while Bonnie snags the blue and Damon takes green. Damon rolls the highest number and moves his piece across the board first. He chooses career, and when Bonnie's turn is next she goes for college.

"My family never valued college," Kai says conversationally after picking career. "It was always 'coven this' and 'coven that'. I mean, why pay for someone to go to school when they're just going to be twin-sacrificed and fall off the map anyway, right?"

"Twin sacrificed?" Bonnie asks softly. "You're a twin?" When she makes eye contact with Damon, he has a smug ' _I-told-you-so_ ' look. She's not surprised.

"Me and like half of the Gemini Coven, yeah. Hence the name. It's tradition in our family to pick a new coven leader through something called the Merge. At 22, one twin dies and the other lives— the new twin becomes the power source for all. You can imagine why my coven didn't want that to be me." He winks, and she looks away hurriedly.

"And that's why you're here, right? Aside from your little murder-romp in the Gemini nursery?" Damon prompts, knocking Kai's orange car off of its spot on the board as he passes it with his own pawn.

"Road rage, Damon?" Kai asks, clearly dodging the question while picking up and righting his fallen pawn. "That's not a good look on a man your age." After starting his turn, the Siphon lands on the career space and snatches a card from Bonnie, who had involuntarily become the game's banker. "Entertainer," he says with a smirk, flashing the other side of the card. "My services are free of charge for you, Bon." He winks.

Bonnie gives him an appalled look, and Damon's face scrunches in disgust.

"What?" Kai exclaims indignantly. "I'd be a great stripper. Just give me some tequila and a pole and I'll be right at home. It's not my fault you two are both prudes." He looks at them seriously, as if he's gearing up to give them a sudden intervention. "Bonnie, exploring your sexuality is allowed. Damon, have you ever done anything but missionary with Eleanor?"

"Elena," Damon snaps, looking impatient. "Watch it, Ryan Reynolds. Talk about her again and you might lose the  _ability_ to talk."

"Yeesh," Kai says, watching as Bonnie moves her car and leans over to snatch a career card. "For the record, you might be the most melodramatic person I've ever met. And that's saying something, considering I slaughtered half my family."

Bonnie flips her career card over, showing it to the rest of them. "Doctor," she says sweetly. "Just enough money to build a big ole dungeon in the middle of nowhere and leave you in it, Kai." Her gaze is challenging as she places the card on the floor.

"Annnd I take it back," Kai says with an understanding nod. "Bonnie is kinkier than I initially thought. Right, Bon? Am I allowed to scream for help, or will you punish me?" His voice is a low tone of seduction. He leans towards her a little, and Bonnie feels her cheeks flare with a sudden involuntary heat. She meets his gaze evenly, trying to ignore the heat coming over her.

"Woah, woah," Damon interrupts, waving a hand in disgust. "She doesn't  _like_ you, genius. And neither do I, so stop pissing me off."

Bonnie swallows, shaking her head. "No, it's okay. If he keeps up with it, I'll just have to put him in his place. Right, Kai?" The words are a threat like poison on her tongue.

A smirk plays on the Siphoner's lips, and he looks between Damon and Bonnie. "Is that supposed to be a bad thing?"

-o-o-o-o-

_"Did you really think I didn't try to kill myself before? Because I had- lots of times. Lots of ways."_

Stabbing, biting pain, bleeding through her. The arrow from Kai's crossbow had lodged in her abdomen, shooting her across the cavern floor until her hands were scraping at the rock and she couldn't breathe.  _She couldn't breathe._ She wondered, lying there, if that's what it had felt like in the brief second she had done it- the moment she had launched the ax into Kai's chest and murdered him in cold blood.

She hadn't been sure why she'd done it. The feeling of his electrifying siphoning ability had burned into her brain and her soul- striking a fear and heat into her that she wanted nothing more than to stamp out. Something about his grin and his touch- the way he infuriated her crawled under her skin like a disease.

She had just wanted to snuff it out. But in doing so, she'd killed for the first time.

_Bonnie had killed someone._

She'd challenged him- known he was playing her. Gambled that maybe she and Damon didn't actually need him for the spell. Kai needed  _her_ to get out, but she hadn't needed  _him_ ; at least, that's what she had hoped when she'd made her move.

He'd come back from the dead, though. He'd resurrected like some kind of Messiah, and the arrow he'd then shot her with seared a pain through her she hadn't known in a while.

She'd managed to free Damon, but she'd blacked out.

When she finally comes to, fragments of thoughts and memories of the previous day overtake her. She breathes in, slowly. Carefully.

And she opens her eyes.

The first thing she sees is Ms. Cuddles, perched on the rim of the couch. A pain aches in her side, and her hand moves to it automatically, gently cupping the area of the wound.

"Oh, look who's awake," Kai says. She can hear the sound of clicking that she knows is the Ascendant. "How do you feel?"

When Bonnie meets his eyes, he's leaning forward at the table, clasping his hands together in something that might resemble concern if she didn't know he was off his rocker.

"Like you shot me with an arrow," she manages, completely aghast by the question.

"Right," he responds, and she confirms with certainty he doesn't care. "Anywho. I have no idea how you managed to shatter the Ascendant into a billion pieces, but we need to put it back together before the eclipse at 12:28. You wanna help? I know you're, uh- a puzzle person."

"I don't want to help." She stands shakily, her hand still covering the wound. "You're a psychopath. This place is your prison, and I'm not letting you out. Besides, you'll just kill me the moment we get out."

He blinks more times than are necessary, his expression blanking in confusion. "You've been through a trauma," he declares, pushing himself into a standing position to start walking towards her. Bonnie feels frozen in place, pain throbbing in her abdomen and anxiety clawing at her insides as he approaches. "Your memory's probably a little fuzzy, right now, so you might be thinking your magic can protect you. But all  _I_  have to do is hold your hand, and your magic suddenly becomes mine." Kai's hand snakes out, securing around her wrist.

Bonnie lets out a sharp gasp of pain, feeling the strange, sucking warmth of the siphoning. Her magic feels like it's frying her veins as it exits, and she whimpers, leaning into his toxic touch.

" _What's that? Huh?"_ His breath tickles her ear as he leans towards her, a smirk on his pretty lips. "What? You're gonna do the spell and finally get us home?"

Bonnie feels a warm stirring that ashames her, and she squeezes her eyes shut to try and block out how close he is. Block out what this kind of pain is doing to her.

In a lunge of desperation, she snatches the ballpoint pen from the table and uses as much force as she can muster to stab him in the neck. He chokes, blood spurting from the wound and jumping Bonnie's adrenaline even higher. She scrambles, shakily sliding the contents of the Ascendant into Kai's backpack.

She runs.

_xxxx_

Her hands are shaking so badly when she finally reaches the hospital that switching her bandage out and downing antibiotics is nearly impossible.

The contents of Kai's backpack are spread across the table, the pieces of the Ascendant taunting her with their intricacies.

Fingers trembling, she works, the clock a constant reminder of how little time she has.

It's almost the one hour mark when the end is in sight. She holds the Ascendant in her hands, turning the weighted piece of metal over before her stomach drops.

_The last piece._

"Where is it?" she chokes in desperation, shoving contents off of the desk frantically. "The last piece, where is it?"

"This can't be happening." Ice is in her veins. The clock ticks behind her, and she can sense him— feel him, even though he's not there.

The hairs on the back of her neck raise. She walks to the corridor, even though she can hardly feel her feet.

When he speaks, her mind blanks.

"Looking for this?" Kai's alive again, and the blood is gone. He's holding it— the last piece. " _You stole the Ascendant._ Naughty girl. You weren't planning on using it and leaving me behind, were you?"

She swallows, a chill on her skin and a fire boiling softly in her veins. Fear, fear, fear, with the faintest touch of something else. Something more.

"You left a trail of blood in the driveway," he muses, approaching. "I figured, where else would you stop and play nurse?"

The fire in her veins feels like it's boiling and flaring over. "Vatos," she shouts, throwing a hand out. In a whirlwind of exploding lights and telekinesis, the spell rains chaos down on him.

Bolting for the back emergency exit, she takes off, her boots skidding across the tiled hallway.

Slamming her form against the door, it swings open and she's sprinting. She doesn't know where until her eyes catch it: the sight of Damon's Camaro.

Ripping the driver's seat door open, she tumbles in, her fingers closing around the key in the ignition. She turns it frantically, whispering _"Come on, come on."_

He snatches her, yanking her back in the seat until her head slams into the stiff cushion. She cries out in shock, the feeling of his hands around her neck sending an alarm through her like a siren. "Get off me," she just barely manages, jerking defiantly against his grip.

His face is next to hers again.  _Too close_. His fingers are digging into the soft skin of her neck, and his breath is hot in her ear. "I thought about taking the keys," he murmurs, moving from her neck to her cheek. She feels her entire body flush as his lips brush her skin, moving to form words. "But that'd be like taking cheese out of a mousetrap." He gently grazes his lips across the side of her face and downwards, pressing his nose into her neck to sniff. "Right, Bonnie?"

She inhales sharply, her groin reacting in ways she has no control over. His long fingers loosen just a little, sliding over her sensitive skin and sending a chill up her spine. "Y'know, fun fact, mice don't actually like cheese. Isn't that great?"

"Shhh, shhhh," he says, moving his lips back to her cheek. His breath washes over her, and tears sting her eyes from the intensity. She knows if they so much as move a little, they have the potential to be kissing. Shaken, she yanks away from him, and he finally releases his hold.

"So, we have an hour until the eclipse. It's time to go home, Bonnie."


End file.
